₦airaland Forum

virgin nigeria(vk) case is a very good example of what happens when you enter a business with poor commitment/poor market planning, mr branson never really took the investment seriously becos he felt he had no competition at the period he entered the business but it was the same period (about a year later)arik air started with newer planes and in my view their biggest undoing aero started their huge expansion(they now fly about 7 - 10 b737-300/400/500).and coupled with the fact that aero has better service and keep to schdule, vk is finding hard to find its feet and create new capacity so some of their staff are becoming redundant, hence they gat to lay-off.

ode remo we for leave the boy but if e do one accidential ddischarge now na so he family go change de story denia am,

if on the first day you meet she keeps counting her fingers unconsiously , on a serious note if she does things only someone that cares for you you would do and she feels comfortable and secure around you

people should understand what drove ribadu was passion.the guys really passionatly hates the senseless corruption that was taking place in the country and when he was given the oppurtunity to assualt it using the powers and the tools available to him(depending on how u look at it) obj issue with his percieved or real political enemies(was a tool also). but one thing we should all note is that a passionate person into something like ribadu is into right now cannot lose, because i personally thinks that ribadu does not care about that police job again and his enemies have played to his script perfectly,by just making him more relevant even after obj left they would have just posted him to interpol before u knew it nigerian press would forget him like obanikoro. ibori and co f**#ed up big time.

nigeria is not moving in circle pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeee, it is not moving at allllllllllllllllllllllllll

and adedibu been talk dis thing and we no believe am!!!,he said dora destroyed those shop that belonged to his boys in ibadan becos he didnot lobby/support her desire to be a minister. and i thought the oldman was lying and mudslinging then,

hello all dey merry xmas

not that i support the journalist but why is dat some ministry must be run by only professionals and others by anybodys. e.g health has always be run by medical doctors and look at the mess our medical sector is, it's worse than nepa

ol boi a! make de astronuts b ibb,buhari,gowon,obj,yar no doer and make dey lost like dat satellite

people longest time, keep the tread flying cheers

hello people hope its all good. for you guys to the airshow if possible we would love some pics,hope you<ll all have a great time.wham what up? ivy4u heard a rumour that vk is in some finanicial stress,finding it difficult to pay staff on time and all that maybe you weren't destined to be caughtb up in this puddle after all?wham wats up? will holla u one of this weekends.to all, keep the dream flying and takia

people bristow have advertised again for their helicopter pilot training stuff, if you are intrested. the same conditions apply. all the best

, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, :d

hello all still onboard sharing the dream, ivy4u i dey kampe,wham howlife?hope its ngood,everybody else wishing you all the best, later

stalker thanks very much for this info; i advice we all try even if you are overage like me you never know.wham wats up? longest time b

IVY4U notin spoil. at least focus and with your sponsors you be flying in 2 years max. please could you contact me through email any time you are free so i can get more details about the school from you? my email addy is in my profile

my guy first i no be malo but i go talk the truth, i am not critizing politician but we have many hard workin hausa men,igbo men,idoma,igala,yoruba,et al,so it will not be just to condemn a whole tribe because of a few,or should we accuse all my fellow ibo brodas of infanticice becos a few sell fake sma and other baby drugs? . nuzo have you done a thorough research?one example of such countries is canada, there are certain verses of even the bible that cannot be read a loud in the public becos they are considered hate messages(e.g those portions about egyptian, syria et al). i believe your freedom of speech end were the next person's own begin let focus less on tribe and more on the issues of our country if truly want to progress . CHEI LONG GRAMMER TRUE TRUE

kazeem what are we going to/not go to revolt about? how many people have revolution set free?

dear administrator even in the countries were freedom of speech and press are most respected,the goverment and the local press do not condone hate based messages and information desimination, i guess it is time for nairaland in my humble opinion to censors/suspend/expel some individual that have are always quick to spread tribal/ethnic hate messages instead of information that will uplift us as a people and help intergrate people who network in this forum, remeber it was through hate messages that the rewanda crisis started.long live naira land

hello ivy4u, hope your test went ok?

in education we keep deceiving our selves in this country(naija), alot of statistics are outdated. go to majority of the sec.school in nigeria but private and public they kids are not being thought properly. during my service year last year in an area of ondo that also borders ekiti, an area reputed for producing so many of nigerian educated elites in the past,the school in the area were patetic students in ss2 could not even copy note from the blackboard,in private schools waec was written for the student by the school authorities.and this suituation was not common to only were i served but in the east its the same, in the north its the same. in this country most problem is national and to a large extent evenly spread.they are corrupt political leaders from every tribe and its this kind of tribalistic talk thats empower them, and please the north did not rule alone,

well i think you need to have like 20% of the dough with a garantour b4 u could access that bank loan stuff,,,,,,,am wondering if you have the same amount i bet some airlines will be willing to help you. all the best to those writing vk test

hello all, the test would be basically math apt, english apt, mechanical apt and spatial aorientation apt.you can get more info on the carrer talk forum discussion i want to be a pilot.also read alot on aviation cos you may be given an essay,all the best

ivy 4u the test would probably will be similar to bristow heli test but maybe with a spatial orientation test to(i.e fixing shapes together et al), maths english and maybe some essays, relax and wishing you the best

people heard virgin calling people today, have they called anyone here?

please do u have a ppl and when and how were u invited by email or text?

ivy 4u i think we can all keep hoping? but with this divesting stuff to(virgin atlantic is planning to sell it share in vk) i still hope they call on us all

i also appiled 4 dat college.when did they do their test? any how as thanks for the info wham you are a great help

if you are not contacted by de weekend then maybe you were not selected, just keep on hoping though.

poster both kenya airways and srilankan airline major shares are owned by other airlines from other countries, sri lankan is owned by emirates and kq by airfrance/klm, its this kind of things that this gov is doing that make it almost impossible to operate a gov business

hello rotor head kool that you joined.please do you have the address to those greek schools?i would appreciate it if you could share them.

saw this article thought it may interest some;
Shortage Of Airline Pilots: Nigeria’s Creeping, 1 Week, 4 Days ago Karma: 0
Published at Leadership Nigeria
Author: Capt Daniel Omale

Recently, IRS Airlines’ Embraer 145 regional jet (RJ) was grounded for over two weeks because of lack of crew. The pilots were poached and offered more money by Aero and Arik Airlines. For any airlines paying less than N1.3m per month per airline captain, there is every tendency that another airline will offer more pay, and snatch pilots from the least paying company. This is the current trend in aviation industry in Nigeria. There is acute shortage of pilots world wide, but our focus is on our own industry _base_d on immediate and future demands.

When Virgin Nigeria debuted a few years ago, most of the airlines operating in Nigeria at the time lost experienced pilots to the new outfit; this created another circle of shortage of pilots in the industry. Many airlines had to hike pilots’ pay to avoid further loss of their valuable crews, but the issue became worse when Arik Air emerged and flooded the country with modern jets acquired in cash. The desperation to commence flight operations and register their presence everywhere possible in the country, led to higher demand for experienced crews within and outside the country. With more demand for pilots, salaries and other remunerations quickly rose to all new level ever witnessed in the country. Aero’s desire to maintain their standard led to the first explosion of salary upgrade in the industry.

As for IRS airlines mentioned above, the only solution was to import foreign pilots into the country for the job. Other airlines like Bellview and Virgin, even Arik are currently engaging foreign crews to help out the situation. Today, it is quite hopeless to give any time _frame_ for the utilisation of foreign pilots in Nigeria. Prior to this dilemma, foreign pilots were limited to six months of stay in Nigeria, especially for wet leased aircraft.

When Dornier Aviation Nigeria Aeip limited (DANA) called for pilots’ interview a few weeks ago, the very few that bothered to attend demanded nothing less than N1.1m per month in additional to boisterous flying allowances and other perks. As bad as the situation is, the overall effect is another envisaged increased in passenger fares in addition to the fuel -price crisis.

The main issue is not the situation but what the future holds for the industry, if the government is not looking at the best way to alleviate this problem. We say that it is up to the airlines to fend for themselves, but the resultant effects could truncate the whole industry whereby crews’ workload would increase, and the risk of fatigue which could cause major aircraft accidents would resurface in the country.

Many airlines in the country are fond of enticing pilots with extra flying allowances _base_d on actual flight hours flown in a given period. Most pilots are easily lured into more flights and more pay syndrome, a situation that has created accident prone tendencies that the regulatory authority can hardly detect.

The first question in our minds should stem from finding out some of the reasons responsible for the shortage of pilots in Nigeria, although the number of airlines has decreased over the years. There is acute shortage of airline pilots world wide and most airlines around the world are poaching crews from every where to augment demand necessities. Some airlines have embarked vigorously outsourcing crew training to reputable flying schools with tailored programs to meet their immediate needs. Unfortunately, in Nigeria, this is not the case. Since 1995, there have been less than 50 newly trained commercial pilots in the country. Within this same time, over 100 old pilots have retired from the system, thereby creating a big vacuum of shortages.

The biggest setbacks in the industry for available pilots are the demise of Nigeria Airways, the mandatory retirement age of 62 years, and of course, in the past, lack of regular pilot training program at the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria, until the arrival of the current leadership of the college. The new team of NCAT under Capt. Bayo Araba, in less than 18 months in office, has trained young pilots to graduation stages. While commercial pilot program takes about 24 months to accomplish (all things being equal), the cost of training a pilot in Nigeria has risen to over N5.0 million because of fuel costs, instructors’ remunerations and supporting aircraft spares.

On my visit to the college a few days ago, I learnt that the cost of aviation gasoline, the fuel used for basic training on the Tampico aircraft has skyrocketed to about N500 per litre and there is near zero availability. It is also estimated that the school burns almost N5.0 million fuels on a good training day. If we have to use a psychological term of "representative heuristics," there is immediate need for full financial support of NCAT to avoid future training distortions, since we have to look at the scarcity of the 100LL gasoline and the cost trend. Another serious solution to this crisis is the deployment of technology into the training program to reduce actual physical flight training in the aircraft. Aircraft simulators, computer -_base_d equipment that can substitute training requirements are not cheap, but they are the only substitute, if acquired, that can support the immediate need of the college. Another solution dimension is the need to change the current fleet of training aircraft used by the college. This line of thinking is definitely the most expensive as acquisition cost of the new type of aircraft may be too high to bear right away in addition to type -training expenses for the flying instructors and engineers.

On the whole, the government needs to do more than what it is currently doing to support the training of our future pilots. The immediate past rector of the college got approval of N3.2 billion intervention fund about three years ago, but up till now, the fund is still dangling in the Ministry of Finance without a clear path to its attainment. This, of course, is our _style_ of project financing, especially where federal government is concerned on serious issues.

But despite blaming the government for the delay in releasing funds to upgrade training equipment at NCAT, the primary responsibility for crew training lies completely in the hands of the airlines themselves. While there is great demand for pilots, the best our airlines have done is poaching experienced pilots trained by other airlines, whose basic trainings were paid for by the government or from personal purses. For airlines interested in future growth and expansion, there is a vital need to embark on paying for training for the future generations of young crews that would continue from this generation.

Unfortunately, our airlines plan and operate cowboy-_style_ approach because they do not see the benefit of training for the future or more so, they are skeptical of training pilots that would be poached by their competitors—the _style_ everyone in the industry is highly used to.

Whichever way we look at it, the future is getting very dim since planning for tomorrow is the only way to salvage this dilemma. Some one must take the bull by the horn; government must provide the infrastructure, while the airlines pay for the training if actually, they intend to stay longer in business.